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William Wilberforce 3 inspirational people of the 18th and 19th centuries are remembered by the Church of England today. These are William Wilberforce, social reformer and Oloudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson, anti-slavery campaigners. This portrait is of William Wilberforce (1759 - 1833). He was a member of an influential group of evangelical Christians known as the Clapham Sect. William Wilberforce was active in social reform, a concern that arose from his Christian faith. As an MP for Hull and then Yorkshire he campaigned for improved factory conditions in England and for the abolition of the slave trade.  You can read more about him in a  brief biography of William Wilberforce on the BBC History website . Oloudah Equiano Oloudah Equiano (c.1745 - 1797) was a former slave, then seaman and writer. He was an African captured as a child in what is now Nigeria, sold into slavery, shipped to Barbados and later Virginia where he worked at weeding and gathe...

'Don't stand by' is the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day this year.  27 January is the day chosen for this annual commemoration because it is the anniversay of the day that the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau were liberated by the Soviet army in 1945. The purpose of the day is not only to remember the Holocaust and the Nazi persecution of Jews, but also subsequent genocides and to learn the lessons of history. No genocide takes place in isolation. Behind every genocide is a process that create the conditions in which mass murder of particular peoples becomes possible. It starts with things like lack of respect for others, prejudice, stereotyping of groups of people, seeing those who are different as inferior or to be feared or blamed. This can progress to hate crimes - things that happen now and every single day in the UK and around the world.  This year's HMD theme is intended to encourage us not to simply stand by and ignore what we see to be happeni...

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Coventry blitz during the 2nd World War. The following day the Provost of Coventry Cathedral stood in its ruins and spoke 2 words, "Father forgive". These words are now engraved behind the Altar of Reconciliation in the ruins of the old cathedral. Kathryn Fleming, Canon Pastor points out in her blog post 'From Coventry to Paris' those 2 words, "Father forgive" is a sentence with no object so to pray that is to avoid pointing the finger at 'them' but instead to pray for us all: 'It's not "Father forgive THEM" - projecting the violence and hatred out to the other, and thereby justifying acts of reciprocal violence and vengeance...Rather "Father forgive" is a prayer for us all - for the many ways, great and small, in which we wound one another and mar God's image in us day by day. I can't imagine those words were universally popular in the city, as people emerged from air...

The Armistice that ended the fighting of World War 1 on the Western Front, between Germany and the Allies, came into effect at 11 am ( Paris time) on 11 th November, a date which coincidently is St Martin ’s Day. I am not posting about Armistice Day today but you can see a previous post on that theme in Armistice Day 2014.  Today I'm concentrating on St Martin. Who was  Martin ? There are several people known as St Martin. The Martin remembered today by Catholics and Anglicans is Martin, Bishop of Tours, the patron saint of beggars, soldiers and conscientious objectors. Martin was born about AD 316 in the Roman city of Savaria (now  Szombathely in Hungary ) but spent his childhood in Italy . His father was a tribune, a senior cavalry officer in the Roman army. His parents weren’t Christian but Martin was attracted to Christianity because of Christians he met. As a youth he wanted to be baptised, but was deterred because the law required he follow his...

The 'Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill' has its 2nd reading in the House of Commons today. This is "a bill to enable competent adults who are terminally ill to choose to be provided with medically supervised assistance to end their own life." You can read its full text here. I write this as the debate in the Commons is going on.  I hope it will be defeated. I have many reasons which I will not go into in this post. Some of them you can find in this Guardian article and on the Church of England website . My main reason for being against a change in the law on this matter is based on the Christian imperative to have compassion and to care for the vulnerable. I want our medical and care services to develop excellent, properly funded and resourced palliative care for all who need it rather than enabling assisted suicide in a few rather difficult to define situations for people who may have despaired of such good care being available. After the law was passed in the Net...

What does the Bible say about homosexuality? The February 2013 edition of Christianity magazine tackles this topic and presents a range of views from evangelicals in the UK.  What caught my eye especially today was the  article by Steve Chalke  which in my view is much better argued than the article by Greg Downes  in the same magazine. Perhaps I think this because I agree with Steve Chalke. More of this in another blog post to come. Steve Chalke is a Baptist minister and founder of Oasis . In 2004 he was awarded the MBE by the Queen for his services to social inclusion. I recommend reading the full version of his paper A Matter of Integrity which you can download to Kindle or read on the Oasis website. Tell me what you think. Update: In response, Peter Ould has some relevant Questions for Steve Chalke here. Image Credit: suenosdeuomi on Flickr, CC License

One of my favourite toys was a kaleidoscope.  I was fascinated by the way the patterns could be endlessly changed - all of them beautiful and to my child eye magical.  And yet all were made by the same few pieces of coloured glass and mirrors. And the light. I was reminded of that toy when I read  'Digital Authenticity' by Vicky Beeching which addresses the question 'who are you online and offline?' She challenges the idea that 'authenticity in the digital age means being exactly the same online as offline' and that this can be a basis for digital ethics. Her challenge is based on the premiss that humans are complex who operate in a variety of ways according to context. She is naturally introvert, as I am, yet appears extrovert in public and on-line roles, as I think I sometimes may. The stranger in the supermarket sees one aspect of a person - their spouse another. Different settings or mediums bring out different aspects of the self. She refers to...

Every now and again I read a post on someone else's blog that I wish I'd written myself. Dave Faulkner's post on Big Circumstance today is one of those. In 'An Appeal to Both Sides of the Christian Debate about Gay Marriage' he appeals for the exercise of Christian love and respect between those of opposing opinions. He cites several areas where Christians need to listen to each other: petitions Bible science epistemology ethics Like him I have been appalled by some of the sloppy thinking and wrong facts in certain petitions. Like him my views on the sexuality debate have changed from ten years ago, but are still rather confused, so I too need to work hard on studying and listening more. It was James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool who (quoting the Dean of Liverpool?) used the phrase 'diversity without enmity' in a 2010 address . He said that diversity without enmity  "provides  a safe and a spiritually and emotionally healthy place...

Should blogs be attentive to the working lives of their readers?  This is an impossible question. To answer it presupposes: the blog writer knows about the working lives of their readers the blog writer has things to say relevant to the readers' working lives  or the blog writer has things to say relevant to any form of work. the blog reader wants to read stuff relevant to their work or the blog reader 'should' read stuff relevant to their work As soon as someone uses the word 'should' in a question, it becomes an ethical question. So for someone like me with an MA in Applied Ethics the question is in danger of becoming far too complicated. It all depends on what you mean by 'should'. It could mean so many things, depending on how you dear Reader decide what you 'should' do, for example: Do you decide what you should do according to rules , either rules you have set yourself or imposed by a higher authority such as national or international l...